Writers are desperate people and when they stop being desperate they stop being writers. ~Charles Bukowski
Do you ever have those days where you’re like, I just wrote “stuff”?
I’ve so been there. Days where I have written several, not so exciting, articles and struggle myself to remember what they were about by the end of the day.
Writer’s Dream: Pulitzer Prize Anyone?
Every piece you write doesn’t have to be worthy of the Pulitzer Prize, but if you’re bored, it’s likely that your readers are too. If you have the honor of only writing about what you adore, congrats! But many of us as freelancers, take jobs that are far from exciting or even way off our areas of expertise to pay the bills.
I don’t think this is always a bad thing as it stretches us somehow. You learn, you improve, and maybe even discover a new interest. The challenge is bringing life to something that you’re not completely invested in.
Here is where this fantastic quote, by the great Mr. Earnest Hemingway himself, comes in…
The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.
To truly live is the key factor in the depth of your writing.
When you really taste, feel, and experience life, engrossed in living to the fullest in the most interactive, ethereal manner possible, Wow Magic! That is when you can convey beauty and depth that comes only by experience. That is when you write because you are. Because you feel.
As Anais Nin said, “We write to taste life twice…”
Getting the words from your head to the page can be a struggle, but that’s often because we are missing a step in between. That step is to go out and truly experience the world around us.
I can be a social creature when needed, but with such a rich internal world and love of books and words, it’s tempting to stay inside my own little world. But, I have learned something since the time I began calling myself a writer…
To Write, One Has to Be- One Has to Experience
Be what? You may ask….
Be a spectator, be a student, be a teacher, be an adult, be a child, be a sister, a friend, a lover. Be a chef, be an artist, be a creator. Be the one who engages and does. Be involved. Be engrossed. Be. Do. Observe.
When I am out on the bus or in the park, in a waiting room, or by the soccer field, walking my dog, or staring at the magnificent Andes, that is when the ideas flow to me. That is when the words swirling through my head settle themselves politely on a page with meaning and purpose.
To be a writer, you must have a thirst, a ravenous hunger to experience life. A desperation as Charles Bukowski put it.
You may not always get to write about your favorite subject or develop the ultimate character, but if you are adding your experience to the words you type magical things can happen. And, the more you experience the more often they will.
A Writer’s Fondness for Words
I have a fondness for words, but not for the sake of the words themselves, rather the pictures, feelings, and meanings they evoke.
And, isn’t that what writing is all about? To portray the beauty of life!
A writer lives, at least, in a state of astonishment. Beneath any feeling he has of the good or evil of the world lies a deeper one of wonder at it all. To transmit that feeling, he writes. ~William Sansom
Let me here your spectacular thoughts by leaving me a comment below and please share the writing love!
Christina says
Great article! This reminds me of a book I read a while ago called “The Distant Hours” by Kate Morton. A character within in the book is a daughter of an author. Both of them has this method of writing. They just have to write, and get “it” out. Everything else suffers, eating, drinking, sleeping, etc! Reading that made me happy, because that is how I feel! Again loved the post!
lorihil says
That’s awesome Christina! I will have to check out The Distant Hours!
Janelle says
LOVE this post so much Lori! I definitely feel this all the time, too, and I think you’ve got a great solution. People are also so technology obsessed I feel as though they hardly get the chance to interact with their environments anymore – which is the driving force of inspiration, really.
I’m also a huge Bukowski fan as well ^_^ have you read any Henry Miller before? Now THERE’S a guy that really knows how to live.
lorihil says
Thanks so much for this thoughtful comment Janelle! Will have to check out Henry Miller!